Making scents of it all

I was in my late two's when my grandfather died. Some time before that (couldn't have been much before), I remember seeing him sitting in his wicker chair smoking a pipe - It was either Sir Walter Raleigh or Prince Albert, but I'm not sure which. He was wearing a yellow and black plaid flannel shirt. The furnace was 'clicking' (probably as the old duct-work was expanding) as it began to fire. The worn linoleum was dark red and completely dull. I was standing over the floor register waiting for the heat. It was windy outside but bright-grey and the windows were rattling in the sashes. The bird-cage was hanging but I can't recall the bird. There was a pipe-rack on the white porcelain-metal table next to the chair and smoke curling around his wire-frame glasses but he wasn't reading.

Those sensations are rather clear - but most of all...I remember the smells - his scent, how the kitchen smelled and how the pipe tobacco smelled.

I love the sense in smell. I love how it seems to be my primary 'memory hook'. I love knowing people or dogs have a certain smell and how it colors the way I perceive things. I like to fancy that Fear, Love, Sex, Hate and a gob of other emotions each have their own characteristic scents.

"You're not the only one who can smell fear"
~ from Wild, Poe